Warning as spread of horrific genital infection is reported
By EMILY STEARN, SENIOR HEALTH REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 15:02 GMT, 28 February 2025
Medics have sounded the alarm over mutant 'genital super fungus' that is increasingly spreading through sex.
Cases of the contagious infection dubbed a 'potential public health threat' have been on the rise in recent years, with it now being found in people after sexual contact.
The infection, which attacks the genitals, has been found to be multi-drug resistant and seems to respond only to some of the most-powerful anti-fungal treatments.
It also raises the prospect of infections becoming incurable—leaving patients battling agonising 'skin-eating' funguses for life.
Known as trichophyton mentagrophytes type VII (TMVII), was first cases were reported in Switzerland in 2014, linked to travel in Southeast Asia.
Since then TMVII-caused tinea genitalis, as the rash is known, have been seen in Germany, France and the US.
In a new report, Greek doctors detailed another case in Athens involving a gay man who attended an STI clinic with an itchy rash on his buttocks, abdomen and armpit.
Sharing the tale in a medical journal, they said the 36-year-old tested positive for TMVII but even with treatment only 'showed a gradual but slow improvement'.